gardening

Here we are in the season of fresh fruit and vegetables ready to harvest. It has been a very hot, smoky, dry summer with little rain, yet my garden is producing carrots, zucchini and beets. Why? Perhaps because I have been tending to it and watering it daily.

I have also been through this season of summer enjoying, not only the bountiful garden and blooming flowers but venturing into the backroads and trails on foot and bike enjoying the warm days and quiet, calm evenings, but have seen the devastating drought and ruined crops. The rain has not come for many farmers.

We have also been through a season of discontent, uncertainty and discord in our global world and yet, when the shadow of the darkness covers the garden of my soul, I look to the living water. In the shadow of the evening, leaves are still, flowers close up and sunlight can’t permeate the folded petals or foilage of the forest to let the light in. I want to remember that heaven’s dew falls after the setting of the sun and I need to experience the darkness to see the light, the color, the cheerfulness and beauty of the garden because eventually morning will come. In Exodus 16:21, the Israelites gathered manna each morning, each family according to its need and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. God supplied their needs.

A Long Walk to Water was a #1 New York Times best-selling novel. Linda Sue Park weaves the stories of Ny, a Sudanese girl and Salva, also an eleven-year-old, one of the “lost boys of Sudan” into a novel of two children who encounter danger, yet live to improve the lives of others. She based the novel on Salva Dut, a survivor, who found Water for South Sudan. They overcame many obstacles on their journey on foot across Africa.

We will encounter struggles and go through the valley of tears, pain and sorrow in our lifetimes, but God has been and is with us every step of this life and we need to count each day as a blessing. We need to learn that God is the gardener of our souls. He knows how to tend to our gardens, make us fruitful and will see us through seasons of sadness into brighter tomorrows if we trust him. The flowers, fruit and abundance will be displayed and the flowers will bloom for us each year in full color as they wave in the wind in all their splendor. Let Him water your soul and let His words sink into the soil of your life. Let the living water bring you nourishment and quench your thirst and sustain you.

“…but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14